World News - Austrians Split on New Government's Plan to Let 16-Year-Olds Vote

Austria's new coalition government says 16-year-olds who can already vote in some local races should also be allowed to cast ballots in national elections. But the country is split on lowering the voting age from 18. Some think 16-year-olds are not sufficiently interested or mature enough to have a say in national affairs but others welcome the change. "Adolescents aren't any less interested in politics than other groups," said Reinhard Zuba of the Austrian Institute for Youth Research, citing recent studies on the topic. One such study, carried out with the Vienna-based SORA Institute after local elections in Vienna in October 2005, showed 59 percent of 16- to 18-year-olds cast a ballot. ... http://abcnews.go.com

Two Indonesian women have died of bird flu, a health ministry official said on Saturday, taking the overall human death toll from the disease in the country to 61 amid a spike of new cases.A 27-year-old woman from south Jakarta died after entering Persahabatan Hospital in the capital on Thursday for treatment, Muhammad Nadirin of the health ministry's bird flu information center said. She died on Friday evening. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2792310

Former Argentine President Isabel Peron was detained Friday at her home in Madrid as part of investigations into the South American country's past human rights abuses, police said. Later in the day, Spain's National Court ordered her conditional release pending an extradition request from Argentina. The court said Argentina has 40 days to file an extradition request and Peron has to appear at a police station every 15 days. Police acted on an arrest warrant from an Argentine judge who said he had questions about Peron's chaotic 20-month rule, a time when shadowy right-wing violence destabilized Argentina. The third wife of three-time president Juan Domingo Peron was ousted in the March 1976 coup that ushered in a seven-year dictatorship that waged a "dirty war" against its opponents. Her arrest marked the expansion of Argentina's human rights investigations beyond dictatorship-era crimes to the death squads that terrorized the nation prior to the 1976 coup. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2791749

Days after President Bush accused Syria of encouraging the violence in Iraq, President Jalal Talabani on Sunday will become the highest-level Iraqi official to visit this country in more than 24 years. His visit, announced on Iraqi television and confirmed by a Talabani spokesman Friday, aims to seal the ties between the two neighbors after they restored diplomatic relations in December, cut in 1982 amid ideological disputes between the Syrian government and Saddam Hussein's regime. The Iraqi president will arrive Sunday and stay for four or five days, Talabani's spokesman Kamaran Qaradaghi told the Associated Press. State-run Iraqiya television said Talabani will meet Syrian President Bashar Assad and sign security and economic agreements. ...http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2791746

A 13-year-old boy missing since the beginning of the week was found alive in a suburban St. Louis home, along with a 15-year-old boy missing since 2002, authorities said Friday.Ben Ownby and Shawn Hornbeck were found in a Kirkwood home belonging to Michael Devlin, Sheriff Gary Toelke said. Devlin, 41, has been charged with one count of first-degree kidnapping and is being held on $1 million bond.Ben was last seen Monday, when he stepped off his school bus. The straight-A student and Boy Scout was last seen running the few hundred feet down a gravel road to his home.Police said a tip about a white truck led them to the Devlin's home.Toelke said authorities were surprised to find Shawn, who identified himself when found at the home....http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-12-boys-okay_x.htm?csp=34

A federal judge on Friday dismissed a libel lawsuit filed against The New York Times by a former Army scientist once identified as a person of interest in the 2001 anthrax attacks. U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton in Alexandria dismissed the case a week after lawyers for the Times argued that Steven Hatfill should be considered a public figure under libel law, which makes it much more difficult for a public figure to win a judgment than a private citizen. ...http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2791668